Sunday, April 3, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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What do 18½ minutes and 7 hours 37 minutes have in common?
Here is a hint: These numbers are and will be part of America’s history books when the chapter about “the abuse of presidential power and the inevitable cover-up” is finally written.
I say, finally, because something tells me that we are not quite done having to live through these sordid, illegal and democracy-destroying episodes that are encouraged by America’s unfortunate ability to ignore history, common sense and the sense of common purpose in our pursuit of a more perfect union.
Ok, for those of you who weren’t even born in 1972 — which is most of you — the 18½ minutes refers to the White House tapes that went missing (let’s call them erased) when the Watergate prosecutors sought to ask of President Richard Nixon, “What did you know and when did you know it?”
The subject matter was the break-in at Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel and the cover-up that ensued at the highest levels of the government. That means the White House and, more specifically, the president!
Yes, Watergate set the low-water mark for presidential illegality and constitutional confrontation. And it set in motion the American pendulum that swings too far in either direction trying to fix an immediate problem. Three generations later, that pendulum is stuck in the outer reaches of government’s inability to act when action is exactly what is required.
And that brings us to 7 hours and 37 minutes.
That is the time that has disappeared from the call logs of the Trump White House from Jan. 6, 2021. Most people can still remember the mayhem. A few others have conveniently — like Nixon’s tapes — erased all memory of that fateful day.
January 6, simply, was the worst attack on the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Capital in our history. The killing of police officers and others marked the lowest time in our American democracy because it was happened during a deliberate attempt to overthrow our constitutional republic and stop the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another.
And, as it is becoming more clear with each passing day of the Jan. 6 committee’s work, Donald Trump’s active involvement in the effort to overturn the will of the voters appears at the heart of that darkness.
While Watergate involved the cover-up of a third-rate burglary (a matter about which I know a good deal because it had its genesis in a safe in my father’s office in Las Vegas ) the Jan. 6 insurrection is a far more serious affront to our democracy. It was an attack on America itself.
The idea that then-President Trump did not make or receive a telephone call for seven and a half hours on the most exciting (for him, not for anyone else) day of his presidency, is preposterous.
I can’t think of a more apt description at this point than cover-up.
I asked at the beginning what the erased tapes from Nixon’s White House and the missing phone logs of the Trump White House have in common?
In my opinion, the answer is not very much — yet. Except for lawbreaking itself.
When it became clear that Nixon’s cover-up was documented on the tape that no longer existed, a group of Republican leaders — members of Nixon’s own party and his friends — went to the White House to tell him it was over. The “it” was his presidency because they were not going to allow Nixon to drag this country and its democracy through the mud of an impeachment — an impeachment for which they were willing to vote “yes.”
Republicans in those days were Americans first and almost always thought of the American people and their democracy ahead of their own petty political pursuits. That’s why they could muster the courage to confront Nixon.
Fast forward 50 years and the Republicans today — with a couple of standout exceptions — have relegated the American democracy and our Constitution to a far lesser position, one that trails well behind their own political survival.
In short, where are today’s American heroes in the GOP who will stand up — against a now-former president — in favor of the Constitution? Where are the Barry Goldwaters and Howard Bakers whose belief in America propelled their speaking truth to the power of the presidency?
Where are they, not just at the highest levels of government but at the local level where the people live?
The Sun has not been silent about those who seek public office today but who are unwilling to tell the voters the truth about Jan. 6, the day many violent Americans turned protest into an attempt to overthrow our government.
The truth of that day — to the extent that it isn’t already crystal clear — most likely exists in those missing seven and a half hours. And when that truth is known, the political cowardice of far too many Republicans in 2022 will be laid bare.
And then we will know for sure what those missing minutes and hours of our history have in common.
Until then, consider ourselves forewarned and act (vote) accordingly. Democracy demands nothing less.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
